Unsettling the Politics of Exclusion:
Aboriginal Activism and the Vancouver Downtown East Side
Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science
Association (2010), Session M10(b) Beyond Statistics: Urban Indigenous Politics.
Concordia University, Montreal, QC. June 3, 2010
Donna Schatz
PhD Candidate,
Department of Political Science
York University
[email protected]
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Introduction
II. Background: Situating the Vancouver Downtown East Side (VDES) as a Product of
Neocolonial History
Spatial Location
Map 1: Vancouver Downtown East Side
Demographic Composition
Illicit Drug Use and HIV/ AIDS Rates
Missing & Murdered Women
III. Social Activism in the Vancouver Downtown East Side:
Examples of Aboriginal Community Resistance, Revolution, and Transformation
IV. Conclusion
3
Introduction
A grandiose media spectacle erupted when the 2010 Winter Olympic Games were
held in Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia from February - March this year. But
carefully obscured behind the exhibition of sporting entertainment, the evocations of
national patriotism, and the prominent logos of corporate marketers was the untold story
of the price dearly paid by local residents.1 The location of the games was significant:
They took place on the traditional and shared territories of the Lil’wat, Musqueam,
Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Four Host First Nations, 2009; Government of
Canada, 2009) and while the International Olympic Committee recognized “The Four
Host First Nations” as official partners, many people protested the fact that they were
held on unceded sovereign Native lands and had caused the environmental destruction of
essential Aboriginal ecosystems (No 2010 Olympics on Stolen Native Land, 2010: Resist
the 2010 Corporate Circus, 2010). In addition, the enthusiastic spending directly related
to the Olympic Games came at the cost of social sustainability for many urban poor
people (many of whom are Aboriginal peoples).2
Since being awarded the Olympic bid seven years earlier, billions of dollars were
invested in massive infrastructure to support the 16-day Olympic and 9-day Paralympic
Winter Games. As Christopher Shaw, a founding member and lead spokesperson for the
“No Games 2010 Coalition” and “2010 Watch,” explains, government spending to host
the Olympic Games for less than a month far exceeded social expenditures on healthcare,
education, housing, and job training, among others (Shaw, 2010). In fact, just one day
before the opening ceremony British Columbia premier Gordon Campbell announced a
$10 million dollar cut to children’s services which provide crisis phone lines and help for
1
It is important to note at the onset that the Olympics did not take place without considerable opposition
from First Nations peoples working in solidarity with local residents and activists. Groups such as the
Olympic Resistance Network, 2010 Welcoming Committee, and many affiliated and participating
organizations opposed the Olympic plans from the start. Their actions culminated with a 5000- person
protest at the Olympic torch and opening ceremonies on February 12, 2010 (Annis, 2010; Bowen and
Shannon Frontline Consulting, 2009).
2
As Grace Ouellette notes, “Aboriginal peoples in Canada are diverse and come from many nations, but
many are divided into distinct legal categories imposed by Canada’s federal government” (Ouellette, 2002,
p.86). It should be noted that First Nations peoples in no way comprise a homogenous group. Instead, they
constitute “a number of distinct nations with different histories, cultures, economic bases, language and
dialects” (Das Gupta, 1995, p.145). For the purposes of this paper, I will use the term First Nations peoples
interchangeably with the terms “Aboriginal,” “Indigenous,” or “Native” peoples. These terms refer to the
descendents of Indigenous peoples who self-identify as belonging to the large range of treaty status or nontreaty status groups in Canada, as well as Métis and Inuit peoples.
Aboriginal peoples in Vancouver, along with other urban Aboriginal peoples, are heterogeneous in terms of
affiliation and legal status. Over 36,000 Aboriginal peoples (or more than 20% of all Aboriginal peoples in
British Columbia) live there (Cardinal & Adin, 2005). Within the Greater Vancouver Regional District
there are 10 different First Nations groups occupying 22 different reserves. The ten First Nations in
Vancouver include Katzie, Kwantlen, Matsqui, Musqueam, Squamish, Tsawwassen, Tseil-Waututh,
Kwikwetlem, Qayqact, and Semihamoo (Greater Vancouver Regional District, 2003). The urban
Aboriginal population is increasing, with a 140% growth rate from 1981 to 2001. In 1981 the total
population of Aboriginal peoples in Vancouver was 15,380. It increased to 31,140 in 1996, 36,860 in 2001,
and 40,310 in 2006 (Siggner & Costa, 2005; Statistics Canada, 2009).This represents a significant increase
in the Aboriginal population and one which is likely to continue.
4
youth with mental health problems and addictions (Annis, 2010), a fact which speaks
volumes in a historical material analysis.
The exorbitant spending for the Vancouver Olympics signals a pronounced
example of urban neoliberalism where “[m]ore entrepreneurial programs of urban
governance, in which cities compete aggressively to attract capital, tourists, and
government funds, have been identified, with a consequent shift from an emphasis on
local livability and life opportunities of local residents to an externally oriented logic of
the bottom line” [that is, the economic rationality of capitalism/ the logic of
accumulation] (Harvey, 1989 as summarized by Blomley, 2004, my explanation added).
Among those most affected by the 2010 Olympics were the residents of the Vancouver
Downtown East Side (hereafter referred to by the acronym VDES).3 Many people living
in this marginalized community faced rent increases, displacement through low-income
tenant evictions and increased policing and criminalization (2010 Welcoming Committee,
2010; Bowen and Shannon Frontline Consulting, 2009; Schmidt & Morin, 2007).
To put it into perspective for the larger purposes of this presentation, it must be
understood that long before becoming an Olympic spotlight, the VDES became notorious
throughout North America for its high rates of poverty, drug addictions, HIV-AIDS, and
murdered and missing sex workers, in large part due to sensational media depictions
which captured the imaginations of television audiences. However, the Vancouver zone
requires more nuanced analysis than has been applied through such representations to
date. In terms of material social relations, the VDES signifies a complex neocolonial
history which is too-often ignored. 4 The continuance of these neocolonial relationships
are historically gendered, sexualized, and racialized (Emberley, 2001, Loomba, 2005;
Mies, 1998; Smith, 2005). In the Canadian case, the nation, as Jim Silver writes,
was built on the National Policy. But it all rested on the removal of Aboriginal
people from their homes, their confinement to reserves and the construction of an
elaborate system of social control justified on the false grounds of Aboriginal
inferiority. The results have been devastating for Aboriginal people. They were
dispossessed of their lands, pushed onto reserves and thus isolated from the
dominant culture and institutions of Canada, subjected to colonial control of the
Indian Act and the domination of the Indian Agent, and forced into residential
schools. At the heart of the process of colonization was the deliberate attempt to
destroy Aboriginal people’s economic and political systems and their cultures and
religions- some of the practices of which were literally outlawed- and to replace
them with European institutions and values. This was the strategy and policy of
3
Those familiar with the area often use the acronym DES or DTES to refer to the Downtown Vancouver
East Side. I have chosen to employ the acronym VDES for an unfamiliar (i.e. non Vancouver-based)
audience.
4
I use the term “neocolonial” as a form of naming the oppressive hierarchical power relations which began
during the colonization of Aboriginal peoples and which continue to exist, albeit, in diverse manifestations
today. Under colonialism, political, economic, and social privileges were formed along intertwining
hierarchies of gender, race, ethnicity, and social class, with power reserved for propertied white men. This
includes the “long history of attempts at governmental management of ethnocultural identities within the
territory now claimed by the Canadian state” (Day, 2000, p.5). Nonetheless, colonial projects never take
place without postcolonial resistance (See Fanon, 2004; Mohanty and Alexander, 1991; Mohanty, 2003;
Mohanty, Russo, and Torres, 1991; Said, 1978). In the VDES Aboriginal peoples have historically
demonstrated resistance to sociohistorical, racial, and colonial relations with their white settler colonizers
and the violences of Western imperialism.
5
“assimilation.” It was, and for many Canadians still is, justified on the false
grounds that European institutions and cultural and religious values are superior
to those of Aboriginal people. The resultant colonial ideology is pervasive.
(Silver, 2006, p.19)
This pervasive colonial ideology acutely intersects with the contemporary socioeconomic
conditions of urban Aboriginal peoples in the VDES.
As its starting point, this conference paper (based on a larger dissertation project
yet to be undertaken)5 suggests that dismantling the long-standing politics of exclusion in
the VDES requires a historical material framework as a primary means of analysis
because, as it will be emphasized, the social constructions of gender, race, class, age, and
ability6 within this specific Western Canadian urban zone are mediated through existing
capitalist arrangements and exacerbated through neoliberal state policy.7 Nonetheless,
while the VDES displays general characteristics in terms of the impact of global
neoliberal forces, it still possesses a specific urban history to be investigated. In terms of
material social relations, the VDES signifies a complex neocolonial history, a history of
oppressive hierarchical power relations which began during the initial colonization of
Aboriginal peoples and land appropriation, and which continue to exist, albeit, in diverse
5
The dissertation is entitled, “Contesting the Neoliberal/ Neocolonial City: An Analysis of Urban Political
Economy and Community Activism in the Vancouver Downtown East Side.” I have not yet had the chance
to conduct my fieldwork on urban Aboriginal organizations within Vancouver. This paper forms the
background for such a project. I am acutely aware of the need to employ a decolonizing methodology
(Smith, 1999; Ouellette, 2002) in this future undertaking because, as Jim Silver notes, “we can best learn
about the urban Aboriginal experience by talking with, and listening to urban Aboriginal people themselves
(Silver, 2006, p.31).” It is hoped that by centering resident and activist experiences, an inclusive method of
research may be attained.
6
To provide clarification on the terms gender, race, class, and ability, I will refer to other scholars’
definitions, all which emphasize the centrality of social constructions in the maintenance of existing and
unequal power relations. Gender can be defined as the assignment of masculine and feminine
characteristics to bodies. It involves “a hierarchical division between women and men embedded in both
social institutions and social practices” (Jackson & Scott, 2002, p.1), “forms the basis for social exclusions
and inclusions and constitutes inequalities in power, authority, rights and privileges” (Fudge and Vosko,
2003, p.185). Floya Anthias, Nira Yuval-Davis, and Harriet Cain (1992) use race to refer to the social
significance attached to certain biological human features, physiognomic difference, or collective heredity
of traits. Socioeconomic class relates to the sphere of production processes, but also social factors which
cannot be solely reduced to the economy such as education, etc., which, along with others, determine social
standing, power, rights, and privileges. Physical and mental “disabilities,” too, are socially produced and
historically specific phenomena (Shakespeare, 2006) which reinforce able-bodied norms and existing and
unequal power relations. The paper takes the approach that the intersections of gender, race, class, age, and
ability (Crenshaw, 1991), while still being autonomously produced social relations, compound social
marginalization in this zone.
7
When I refer to the role of the state, it is in the context of “the liberal, representative, electoral,
administrative, legislative, and judicial institutions and practices articulated within the confines of a liberal
constitutional framework” (Cruikshank, 1999) and which are linked to capitalist economic practices.
As will be demonstrated, the referred-to capitalist arrangements which become exacerbated through
neoliberal state policy in the VDES include processes including, but not restricted to, capital investment
leading to development and gentrification, decreased state expenditures on social programs such as the deinstitutionalization of mental health patients, and so on that involve a complex range of federal, provincial,
and municipal policies in addition to historical injustices. Nonetheless, it is important to note that the
political economy of urban neoliberalism has been contested and resisted and, further, local circumstances
and conditions play a major role in determining characteristics of the regimes implemented at various
locales (Albo, 2006; Brenner and Theodore, 2002).
6
manifestations today. For this reason, the complex processes of urbanization must be
contextualized in terms of colonial and neocolonial state practices in the Canadian
context while simultaneously analyzing the ways in which these social processes are
gendered, racialized, classist, ableist, and ageist.
The urbanization of Aboriginal peoples has been clearly documented.
Approximately half of Aboriginal peoples in Canada live in urban centres (Silver, 2006;
Statistics Canada, 2006) and those living in cities face very specific challenges. Among
others, these include inadequate housing, higher rates of unemployment, poverty and
lower levels of income, unsafe neighbourhoods, and racism in various forms. Within the
Greater Vancouver region, specifically, the depressed conditions in all aspects of quality
of life including: cultural (and family), social (health, education, crime, and safety),
economic (employment, income, entrepreneurship), and environmental (resources and
land, air, rivers and oceans, and homes) have been documented by Cardinal (2006).
Further evidence of Aboriginal people’s social exclusion and low prioritization in terms
of social spending is revealed in the fact that there is much less money spent on funding
for Aboriginal peoples making the transition from rural urban areas than for new
Canadians. Calvin Hanselmann (2003), for one, suggests it totals “less than five cents for
every dollar spent on immigrant settlement and transition” (as quoted in Silver, Hay, &
Gorzen, 2006, p.45).
Despite these obstacles, however, “a wide variety of exciting urban community
development initiatives are underway or planned as a result of the efforts of urban
Aboriginal people. Remarkable creativity and energy are growing out of the hard urban
lives of Aboriginal people.” (Silver, 2006, p.11) Therefore, there is a need to unsettle “the
narrative ghettoization of racialized spaces [and identities] as eternally Othered”
(Anderson, 1998, p.203) when referring to urban Aboriginality. While it represents an
extreme case of urban marginalization, it is important to emphasize that the VDES
maintains a strong history of successful community activism and a high concentration of
non-profit organizations for an urban centre of its size. Although it certainly signals one
of the most documented cases of urban social exclusion in Canada, it has an oftenignored history of successful Aboriginal resistance and community activism. Thus, while
recognizing that socially produced space in the VDES is a reflection of unequal
neocolonial power relations and contestations, its potential as a site of resistance,
revolution, and transformation (in other words, its potential for transformational
Aboriginal urban politics) will also be analyzed.
Background: Situating the Vancouver Downtown East Side (VDES) as a Product of
Neocolonial History
Like other poverty zones in Canadian cities, the VDES reveals multiple historical
and interlocking mechanisms of poverty and exclusion as evidenced by chronic social
“ills” including high levels of unemployment, crime rates, homelessness, mental health
problems, drug addictions, sex work, and violence. Such pathologization of social
problems has come to signal the pathologization of the entire neighbourhood according to
Sommers and Blomley (2002). Certainly in terms of its unique spatial location,
demographic composition, elevated rates of HIV/AIDS, and missing and murdered
women, the VDES can be considered to represent one of the most pronounced examples
7
of what Peter Marcuse refers to as the “laws of exclusion” or “the abandoned city”
(Marcuse, 1993). The following sections provide a detailed background of the VDES not
to perpetuate its pathologization, but to help to situate it as a very unique urban zone
worthy of more comprehensive study than has been undertaken to date.
Spatial Location
Any discussion of the spatial location of the VDES must first situate the
geography in terms of colonial land dispossession. The area comprising the present-day
city of Vancouver was occupied by the Coast Salish peoples (among them Musqueam,
Squamish, and Burrard peoples) for over 10,000 years (Blomley, 1998; Brealey, 1995;
Culhane, 2003; Macdonald, 1992). A 1992 map which documents the colonial transition
of Vancouver displays a camp site on the current location of the VDES labeled as
“q’emq’emal’ay/ Kumkumalay” or “big leaf maple trees” (Macdonald, 1992 as also cited
in Blomley, 2004). People been living in the area now called Vancouver for at least 3000
years (Macdonald, 1992) and, as Dara Culhane notes, “Aboriginal people from Coast
Salish and many other First Nations have maintained a continual presence in what is now
called the Downtown Eastside” (p.595). This goes to illustrate that any contemporary
Western cartographic representations are emblematic of the ongoing land encroachment
that the Indigenous inhabitants face.8 While keeping such cartographic erasures in mind,
the larger Vancouver Downtown East Side today is generally considered to be comprised
of eight distinct, ethnically diverse, historic neighbourhoods including Gastown, Victory
Square, Chinatown, Thornton Park, Oppenheimer, Strathcona, an Industrial Area, and
Hastings Corridor as shown on the next page (City of Vancouver, 2008).
The very location of this urban zone makes it unique among major Canadian
cities. In the city of Toronto, by contrast, inner suburbs, not the downtown, primarily
comprise Toronto’s poorest neighbourhoods (United Way of Greater Toronto and the
Canadian Council on Social Development, 2004). And while many other Western
Canadian cities have a downtown core of poverty, the VDES is unique in that it is located
directly as a thoroughfare in the city connecting East Vancouver and the downtown
business core. In fact, the average traffic volume passing through the VDES from 1996 to
2001 was 151,000 vehicles per day (City of Vancouver 2005/06). The main East-West
corridor, Hastings Street, links with the TransCanada Highway and is used by visitors to
access downtown hotels and tourist sites. Gastown, a historic cobble-stoned tourist
attraction, and Chinatown, moreover, are both directly located on the western edge of the
Downtown Eastside and draw many visitors to the VDES itself. 9 The spatial location of
8
Blomley writes, “[s]ettler cities reassure themselves by supposing either that a legitimate transfer of title
from native to nonnatives occurred (through treaty, deed, conquest, and so on) or, more bluntly, that the
land was simply unowned and empty” (Blomley, 2004, p.25). Native land claims in British Columbia,
however, challenge such conceptions of “transferred title” or “terra nullus.” In fact, nearly all land in the
province of British Columbia is contested (Blomley, 2004; No 2010 Olympics on Stolen Native Land,
2010). For more information on land claims, see the BC Treaty Commission (2009).
9
Some of the most expensive commercial real estate in Vancouver is just blocks away from the most
dilapidated zone of the VDES where the same types of building have been converted into loft apartments
and tourist shops (Shier, 2002). Ironically, the colonial dispossession of Native lands, suggests Culhane, is
both erased and celebrated simultaneously in Gastown, “with its high-end tourist shops and galleries
displaying Northwest Coast and Inuit art in every window from exclusive galleries to tacky t-shirt and
trinket carts,” (Culhane, 2003, p.603).With these buildings to the west and new condo towers rising to the
south of the area, the VDES is encircled by redevelopment schemes (Shier, 2002).
8
the VDES is significant in that it is both the product of initial colonial dispossession and
the locus of continued acts of neocolonial marginalization today. As a spatial
arrangement it reflects a pronounced example of a “geography of exclusion” (Peters,
1998) which contrasts with the more affluent surrounding city areas.
Map 1: Vancouver Downtown East Side
Source: City of Vancouver, Downtown Eastside Revitalization, 2008
Reproduced and modified with the permission of the City of Vancouver. 10
Map Notes:
I recognize that by centering the nation state (Canada), a particular region (Western Canada), a specific
province (British Columbia), one city (Vancouver), and a precise urban zone within that city (the
Vancouver Downtown East Side), I am in danger of falling prey to colonial impositions of space. For this
reason, I would like to clearly acknowledge the legacy of colonization on both the peoples and the
Indigenous territories of the Coast Salish peoples (among them Musqueam, Squamish, and Burrard
peoples) which now comprise the VDES.
Keeping these problematics of cartographic erasures in mind, for the purposes of quantitative analysis I will
be basing my VDES boundaries on the City of Vancouver Downtown Eastside Revitalization Map (2008)
shown on the previous page. The area included within these boundaries is comprised of four different
census tract profiles: 9330058.00, 9330057.02, 9330057.01, and 9330059.06 (listed as 58.00, 57.02, 57.01,
and 59.06 on the map). I have extrapolated the information for this analysis based on the information found
in Statistics Canada (2006a; 2006b; 2006c; 2006e) and MapArt Publishing (2009).
10
Acknowledgments: I am grateful to the City of Vancouver for their permission to use and edit their
original map.
I would also like to thank Carolyn King, Cartographer, Department of Geography, York University, who
provided invaluable graphics assistance in modifying this map to include some missing street names along
with outlining the 4 census tracts.
9
Demographic Composition
Approximately 15,000- 16,000 people live within the two square miles which
comprise the central VDES (Allford, 2008; Blomley, 2004). The central urban zone is
commonly referred to as “Canada’s poorest postal code,”11 with high unemployment rates
(estimated at 22 percent) and average annual incomes consisting of about $12,000
(Culhane, 2003). 12 Forty percent of the residents rely on government transfer payments
rather than employment for their incomes (City of Vancouver 2005/06). There is an
uneven gender divide among the population. Of VDES residents, 62% are male and only
38% female. Most (61 percent of the VDES residents) are “non-family persons” or single
men (City of Vancouver, 2005; City of Vancouver 2005/06). Allford writes, “People here
are ethnically diverse and they’re older and poorer than elsewhere in the city” (Allford,
2008).13 Similar to Canada’s other poor neighbourhoods, roughly half of the residents of
the VDES are visible minority immigrants, with Chinese people making up the largest
immigrant population (Mason, 2007).14 In Vancouver, as in many other settler cities,
Aboriginal peoples exist as impoverished minority groups with higher numbers of First
Nations peoples in Victory Square and Thornton Park (Peters, 1998; Mason, 2007).
“Anyone passing through inner-city Vancouver on foot, on a bus, or in a car,” Culhane
asserts, “cannot help but SEE in a literal sense, the concentration of Aboriginal people
here. For most urban Canadians, and visitors from elsewhere, this is an unusual and often
surprising visual experience on which they feel compelled to remark” (Culhane, 2003, p.
11
Incidentally, all postal codes in the VDES begin with “V6A.”
The fact that the VDES has continued to increase in population since the 2001 census (Statistics Canada
2006a; 2006b; 2006c; 2006d), indicates the pressing importance of addressing issues of poverty in the zone.
Culhane’s figures reflect the income of the central VDES. In my examination of the larger region, the four
census tracts ranged in median incomes from $11,433, to $38,004 according to 2006 census data
concerning all private households. The compilation of this data indicates an average median income of
$19,483 overall, but which is constituted by three very poor areas, one of which (census tract profile
9330058.00) is nearly five times lower than the Vancouver median income of $55,231 (Statistics Canada
2006a; 2006b; 2006c; 2006d).
13
As of 2001, half of the population of the VDES was over 45 years of age (City of Vancouver, 2005/06).
14
36 percent of the population is Chinese in the VDES (City of Vancouver, 2005).
12
10
593).15 This visibility contrasts with the historical attempts of assimilation and erasure
promulgated by the Canadian state.
Analysis reveals that there is considerable movement among First Nations peoples
between rural areas, reserve areas, and within and among cities, with indications that
most Aboriginal inhabitants of the VDES have moved from other areas of British
Columbia or other places in Canada (Blomley, 2004; Currie, 1995, as cited in Benoit,
Carroll, and Chaudhry, 2003; Hanselmann, 2001; Hou and Bourne, 2004). Rates of
mobility among Aboriginal peoples are often high, both between urban and rural centres
as a means of maintaining contact with communities of origin and within urban centres,
often as a result of inadequate housing and the lack of affordable, appropriate rental
accommodation (Silver, 2006). The problems of First Nations peoples in urban centres
are exacerbated because of differences in cultures, the loss of traditional Indigenous
values and spirituality, and the absence of a support system for Aboriginal people in the
city. Many urban First Nations peoples feel alienated from both the non-Aboriginal
government and their own Indian band governments (Ouellette, 2002). These problems,
therefore, must be considered a form of neocolonial displacement. They emphasize how
social exclusion is intimately connected to the legacy of colonial practices in Canada. The
visible presence of so many Aboriginal peoples in the VDES dispels taken-for-granted
notions of the city as a white settler space and serves as a reminder of the colonial history
of the zone. Further, because the VDES has a unique urban demographic among
Canadian cities, it provides a good case study for Aboriginal urban politics.
Neocolonial displacement and resulting marginalization are evidenced by high
levels of homelessness and migration among Aboriginal peoples in the VDES. Of the two
to three thousand homeless individuals (Allford, 2008), two-thirds of those sleeping on
the street are First Nations individuals with Aboriginal women being strongly
overrepresented among the homeless population of Vancouver (BC Housing, 2000;
Vancouver Agreement Secretariat, 2004a, as cited in Mason, 2007; Pivot Legal Society,
2006). This group also constitutes 13 percent of shelter users (Hanselmann, 2001).16
15
The latest census figures from 2006 estimate that 40,310 First Nations peoples (representing slightly less
than 2 percent of the total city population) reside in Vancouver. Because census data relies on fixed
addresses and there is a high rate of mobility among urban Aboriginal peoples, this figure is likely lower
than the actual population.
Of this total Aboriginal population, 70 percent live in the core of the VDES and make up between 9 to 40
percent of residents of the urban zone depending on a wide range of estimates (Allford, 2008; Benoit,
Carroll, and Chaudry, 2003; Blomley, 2004).
Women, moreover, head the majority of Aboriginal households (Culhane, 2003; Mason, 2007). Aboriginal
women are statistically overrepresented in most urban areas for a variety of reasons. Because of restrictions
on property ownership and legislation such as Section 12(1)(b) of the revised 1951 Indian Act which
caused Aboriginal women marrying non-Aboriginal men to lose their status, many First Nations women
became excluded from band membership and residence on reserve. The Indian Act, suggests authors such
as Ouellette, must be recognized as “Canada’s main legal instrument of colonialism” (Ouellette, 2002,
p.39). The 1985 amendment (Bill C-31) eventually allowed for the reinstatement of persons who had lost
Indian status through voluntary or involuntary disenfranchisement but despite these recent changes to the
Indian Act, many formerly disenfranchised First Nations peoples continue to reside in urban areas because
of inadequate land bases and resources on reserves, unwelcoming attitudes by band members, a lack of
resources, housing, educational and job opportunities, and limited health services (Ouellette, 2002).
16
This figure is not reflective of the much larger homeless population. The Greater Vancouver Regional District
suggests that Aboriginal people who are homeless avoid shelters, that shelters do not serve this population well,
and that they are underreported in the sheltered homeless data (Greater Vancouver Regional District, 2005, as cited
11
Not only is there a correlation between low income levels and homelessness, but
it has been established that there is a clear link between homelessness and mental health
in Canadian urban settings, particularly among women (Haniff-Cleofas and Khedr,
2005). The British Columbia government cut residential mental health care in Vancouver
in 1994, resulting in many middle-aged patients migrating to single-room occupancy
(SRO) hotels in the VDES.17 Michael Mason notes that, by the year 2000, mental
disabilities for the neighbourhood residents were escalating and that “mental diseases or
disorders in the 45-54 age group for the neighbourhood were 3.6 times that of [the rest
of] Vancouver” (Vancouver Agreement Secretariat, 2004a, p.71, as cited in Mason, 2007,
p. 2369). With such a large and increasing homeless population, the VDES is fertile
ground for further investigation into the connection between homelessness, gender, and
disability. Furthermore, using national statistics on Aboriginal rates of disability and low
income as a guide (Canada, Human Resources and Social Development Canada, 2006;
Assembly of First Nations/First Nations Information Governance Committee, 2007), one
can predict that there will be a parallel or even more acute intersection of race, gender,
class, disability, and marginalization in the VDES. The high numbers of First Nations
peoples, homeless people, and people with mental health issues living in the spatial
arrangement of the VDES signal an unparalleled form of urban marginalization requiring
further investigation.
Illicit Drug Use and HIV/ AIDS Rates
As Culhane (2003) notes, the VDES “has become a focal point in emerging local,
national, and international debates about the causes of, and solutions to, widespread
in Pivot Legal Society, 2006). As a masculinist space, the streets present specific dangers to homeless
women (Huey and Berndt, 2008), and to Aboriginal women in particular.
17
Single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels are a distinguishing feature of the VDES. The VDES has a high
concentration of low income housing. Over 90 percent of dwellings in the VDES are rented (Blomley,
2004) and over half of the low-income housing units in the VDES are in privately owned and managed
residential hotels and rooming houses (Baxter, 1997; City of Vancouver 2005/06). These houses often
charge more than the basic welfare shelter allowance of $325/month (Blomley, 2004), yet the 100 year-old
heritage hotel buildings are the last remaining places where poor people (many of whom have physical
disabilities, mental health problems, drug or alcohol problems, or HIV/ AIDS) can afford to live in the city
of Vancouver (Baxter, 1997; Eby as documented by Schmidt & Morin, 2007). Residents live in rooms
which average ten by twelve feet, sometimes with only a hot plate for cooking, and share communal
washrooms (Baxter, 1997). While being far from ideal, they are an alternative to homelessness.
Development projects have resulted in the displacement of SRO residents. The renovation of Gastown as a
means of heritage preservation between 1968-1975 resulted in four hundred SRO rooms lost and the
displacement of large numbers of people (Sommers & Blomley, 2002). Redevelopment, city closures, and
fire resulted in a decrease of 6300 rooms between 1970-1997, with only 4000 new social housing units
being produced (Smith & Derksen, 2002).
Most recently hotel owners are taking advantage of City of Vancouver bylaws to upgrade and improve
buildings as a means of obtaining higher profits than the low rental incomes. Instead of putting money into
improving the buildings, this results in tenants being evicted (often illegally). The empty buildings are
easier to sell and become part of redevelopment and gentrification projects (Eby as documented in Schmidt
& Morin, 2007). The result of the conversion process is that tenants who are unable to afford housing end
up living on the streets.
12
practices of intravenous injection of illicit drugs and the spread of HIV/AIDS” (Culhane,
2003, p.594). The escalating numbers of HIV/AIDS deaths along with drug fatalities first
drew attention to the VDES as an urban crisis zone. Between 1996 and 2002, 188 people
died of HIV/ AIDS, and at one point, the VDES was denounced as having the highest rate
of HIV/AIDS transmission in the Western world (The Trade and Convention Centre
Community Impact Team (TACCIT), 1999 as cited in Benoit et al., 2003). Crack cocaine
and heroin abuse resulted in high rates of drug-related fatalities and, as a means of
dismantling the open drug scene, the first medically supervised injection facility in North
America was opened in September 2003 and resulted in high participation by intravenous
drug users (Mason, 2007). Investigation into HIV/AIDS statistics reveals a gendered and
racialized crisis. Culhane provides some perspective in her assertion that, “A less
publicized aspect of Vancouver’s HIV/AIDS crisis is that infection rates are significantly
higher among women than among men, and about twice as high among both male and
female Aboriginal intravenous drug users than among non-Aboriginals” (Culhane, 2003,
p.596).18 This fact reveals how the intersections of gender, race, and class provide a
pronounced example of neocolonial legacies which affect residents’ health and ability in
the VDES.
Missing & Murdered Women
Finally, despite the high HIV/AIDS rates, Aboriginal women have proven to be
the most vulnerable group in the VDES for other reasons. As of 2005, sixty percent of the
more than fifty women missing in the VDES were Aboriginal (Thompson, 2005).
Women began disappearing from the VDES as early as 1978, but were ignored by the
police and city officials for twenty years until advocates, journalists, and academics
joined women’s families to galvanize support.19
Robert Pickton, commonly known as a “pig farmer”20 from Port Coquitlam, B.C,
was eventually charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of twenty six women who
went missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. At the time of his conviction for the
second- degree murders of six women in December, 2007, thirty-nine women still
remained missing (Bowen and Shannon Frontline Consulting, 2009; CBC News, 2008;
2007a; 2007b). The plight of the murdered women in Vancouver is intricately linked to
historical colonial processes in which both Native bodies and Native lands are considered
inherently violable (Smith, 2005). As The Native Women’s Association of Canada
18
Hepatitis C is also a significant health problem in the VDES (Hunter, 2000; Pivot Legal Society, 2006;
Pratt, 2005). Of the approximately 4000 intravenous drug users, 90 percent are infected with Hepatitis C
and 30% with HIV (Allford, 2008).
19
The indifference towards missing Aboriginal women is paralleled on “The Highway of Tears,” Highway
16, stretching from Prince Rupert to the West and Prince George to the East in the Northern half of British
Columbia. Prior to 1995, over thirty-two Native women went missing in this area. “Police,” Rachel
Thomson notes, “paid little attention until Nicole Hoar, a non-indigenous woman, disappeared in 2002 on
the highway” (Thompson, 2005, p.8). See Culhane (2003), Pitman (2002), and Pratt (2005) for further
analysis of the lack of attention concerning the missing and murdered women in the VDES along with the
Native Women’s Association of Canada (2008) for information on over five hundred cases of missing and
murdered Aboriginal women and girls across Canada.
20
In fact, Robert Pickton was not a commercial hog farmer, but raised other animals along with pigs.
Yasmin Jiwani and Mary Lynn Young draw attention to the connotations attached to the label “pig farmer”
(Jiwani & Young, 2006). The term “pig,” they suggest, resonated with news audiences because it was
historically connected to sex workers and also reproduced the image of a masculine, “hillbilly” culture.
13
states,
The effects of colonialism and discriminatory federal legislation and policies on
Aboriginal women and girls have been severely negative and have weakened their
role and position in both Aboriginal and Canadian society. This degrading of
Aboriginal women’s role and responsibilities in society increases their
vulnerability in a number of areas, including their vulnerability to being targeted
for violence. (Native Women’s Association of Canada, 2008, p. 2)
The serious levels of racialized and sexualized violence against Aboriginal women and
girls in the VDES represent a contemporary manifestation of these complex relations in
which gender, race, and neocolonialism form a “dangerous intersection” (Smith, 2005;
Razack 2002). As a result of gendered colonial processes, Aboriginal women continue to
experience violence in the VDES. The tragedies of the missing women signal the racial
and gender aspects of the overall dehumanization of marginalized residents of the VDES.
The preceding analysis of the multiple social problems which the VDES faces
reveals that the dark period of colonialism has not yet passed, but instead has
metamorphosized into more contemporary, yet equally repressive, urban manifestations,
replete with numerous social ills. Many of these are directly linked to both historical state
processes and more recent state austerity in terms of social spending and capital
investment in development projects.21 Therefore, there is a “pressing need to study the
public policies and the social structures that refract their relationship and foster the
continuing isolation of the racialized urban core and its residents” (Wacquant, 2008,
p.117). Nonetheless, these social problems alone, while providing evidence that the
VDES is an unusually troubled urban zone, do not fully capture the unique essence of the
area. As will be demonstrated in the next section, the VDES also merits study as a
successful example of community resistance in the form of substantive social activism by
Aboriginal peoples.
Social Activism in the Vancouver Downtown East Side:
Examples of Aboriginal Community Resistance, Revolution, and Transformation
By looking only at the social problems which VDES residents face, structural
explanations for poverty and the agency of residents in contesting such representations
become obscured. It is important to understand that the VDES is not only a site of
chronic social challenges, but also the locus of highly concentrated and very successful
activist movements engaged in community development initiatives.22 As Culhane notes,
21
As just two examples of the state’s role in creating a system of social insecurity (Wacquant, 2008),
mental health patients migrated to the VDES in search of affordable rent when provincial healthcare cuts
were introduced and the high number of homeless people in the community is directly linked to the city’s
promotion of development and gentrification projects.
22
As evidence of the high concentration of community services, The 2005/2006 Downtown Eastside
Community Monitoring Report provides a fairly comprehensive list of such agencies including 10
“Emergency Shelters,” 12 “Community Centres and Meting Places,” 39 “Health and social services in the
DTES,” 8 “Childcare Centres,” 18 “Schools and Education Facilities,” and 48 “Community food security
resources” (City of Vancouver, 2005/06).
This is not to say that the VDES community or its services are in any way homogenous or without internal
divisions. While residents in the VDES may all experience social challenges, they by no means experience
them equally and sharing a physical urban space does not necessarily produce a common culture or
harmonious social relations. Associations such as the Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA)
14
many people in the VDES “struggle daily to maintain and create community, to initiate
and support change, to survive. The Downtown Eastside is an active and activist
neighborhood with a long tradition of labor and anti-poverty organizing” (Culhane, 2003,
p.599).23
Among community groups, a number are of notable influence. Because SRO
hotel units charge more than what most people on social assistance receive (Baxter,
1997), the remainder of the money required for food and lodging involves creative action
on the part of poor people. Residents of the VDES get by on their limited incomes by
means of food services and community centres such as the Carnegie Centre which
provides a library, seniors’ centre, learning/ literacy centre, cafeteria, art gallery,
auditorium and gym, dark room and pottery room, and other free programs and outreach
services (Baxter, 1997; City of Vancouver, 2007). The Downtown Eastside Residents
Association (DERA), established in 1973 is one of the largest and most successful
community organizations in Canada and serves as an influential actor in the promotion of
social housing advocacy, community support programs, and services (Blomley, 1998;
Downtown Eastside Residents Association, 2008; Gerecke, 1991; Sommers and Blomley,
2002; Sommers, 2001). Without a doubt, social struggle and community resistance to
gentrification, private, non-neighbourhood development, and displacement have shaped
the landscape of the VDES and there have been considerable neighbourhood
improvements based on the self-advocacy of residents (Blomley, 1998; Sommers and
Blomley, 2002).
Aboriginal peoples, as well, are directly involved in VDES community
development initiatives, “the process by which people in a neighbourhood participate
collectively in solving problems that they themselves have identified” (Wharf & Clague,
1997, p.249 as quoted in Silver, Hay, & Gorzen, 2006, p.40). As Ouellette notes,
“Aboriginality does indeed affect the lives of Aboriginal people in urban centres, but it is
also Aboriginality that unites urban Indians in addressing local everyday problems”
(2002, p.87). This community development in Vancouver, “involves people (directly or
have succeeded in their campaigns to establish higher levels of social housing and a community centre. In
addition, the community as a whole has united successfully at times against gentrification and privatized
development plans. Such instances include opposition to the development of the seaport at CRAB Park
where activists and Native organizers justified their claims by linking them to First Nations title (Blomley,
2004). Blomley (1998) suggests, however, that within the context of “collective ownership” of the VDES,
sex workers, drug dealers, and First Nations peoples are still often marginalized. This reflects the
Foucauldian governmentality approach which suggests that communities are deeply embedded within and
among hierarchical power relations. In this case pre-existing power hierarchies influence the activist
potential of the community. For this reason, it is imperative that Aboriginal community initiatives are
undertaken by and for Aboriginal peoples themselves.
23
The historical actions of labour organizations in the VDES are well documented by authors such as
McDonald (1996), Sommers and Blomley (2002), and Blomley (2004). In the early 1900s streets and parks
played a central role in the advocacy of working class and immigrant residents of the East end against “the
local Anglo elite that owned the buildings and properties where they lived and worked” (Sommers and
Blomley, 2002, p.29) including the historical Woodward’s department store. During the 1930s, many
employment demonstrations took place on Hastings Street. Much of the contemporary infrastructure in this
neighbourhood developed in the 1960s as non-profit organizations responded to community demands for
services and political representation including opposition to urban renewal, anti-poverty organizing, and
activism over housing displacement (Sommers and Blomley, 2002). Blomley suggests that in recent years
in the VDES, activism draws on a “broadly socialist vocabulary, using an analytical frame that, for good
reason, focuses on concepts such as poverty, social marginalization, the power of the ‘yuppie,’ and so on”
(Blomley, 2004, p.148).
15
through organizations) taking democratic control by participating in planning, bottom-up
decision making, and community action” (Wharf & Clague, 1997, p.249 as quoted in
Silver, Hay, & Gorzen, 2006, p.40).
Native women, in particular, have taken on a role in community organizing as a
continuance of their “long and life-sustaining legacy of respect and empowerment within
traditional indigenous societies” (Guerrero 1997, p.115). Ouellette explains,
Not only have many Aboriginal women had to face change and adapt to new
situations because of federal legislation, many registered band members have also
had to migrate to urban centres in search of a better quality of life. As a result,
they have had to adapt to urban life, and many are caught between two worlds, the
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. Ironically, it is also within the urban centre where
Aboriginal women are most involved in the preservation of Aboriginal cultures,
languages, traditions, beliefs, and values. It is also in the urban centre where
Aboriginal women become the most vocal. (Ouellette, 2002, p.88)
As in other urban areas which are pivotal locations for First Nations women and their
efforts to create a space for themselves beyond the patriarchal relations that exist on
reserves (Peters, 1998), Aboriginal women24 have taken on significant roles in the VDES
as community organizers, ritual specialists, spiritual icons, and political leaders (Culhane,
2003). They often define and implement a holistic and distinctive form of Aboriginal
community development.
Many Aboriginal women in urban centres belong to more than one organization
(including non-Aboriginal organizations) as a means of addressing issues that concern
their communities. Community groups such as Creative Women Craftworks seek social
justice and change in the VDES through art and creative entrepreneurship (Pullen and
Matthews, 2006). In addition, the Chee Mamuk Aboriginal Program engaged in an
outreach project for five communities including the Vancouver Native Health Society in
the VDES. Their 2010 project entitled, “Reclaiming Tradition: Around the kitchen table:
A model for HIV, hepatitis and sexual health education” illustrates a successful and
culturally appropriate model for HIV, hepatitis and sexual health education for
Aboriginal women and serves as a model of Aboriginal women’s community capacity
building (Chee Mamuk Aboriginal Program, First Nations Inuit Health, BC Centre for
Disease Control, & Provincial Health Services Authority, 2010).
There are also a large variety of community-based organizations in Vancouver which
cover health and social services for Aboriginal women. These include, among others, the
Anderson Lodge Women’s Shelter, Atira Women’s Resource Society, Circle of Eagles
Lodge Society, the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, the Big Sisters of BC Lower
Mainland, the Urban Native Youth Association, Vancouver, Native Health Society,
Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter (Government of Canada, 2010).
Further examples of Aboriginal community development in the VDES include the
Aboriginal Front Door and partnerships with various community centres such as the
Carnegie Community Centre. The Aboriginal Front Door Society, for example, “offers a
24
Just as First Nations peoples do not constitute a homogenous group, neither do Aboriginal women.
Evelyn Peters explains, however, that “First Nations women have experienced in common the
discriminatory elements of the Indian Act and the social construction of spaces where Aboriginal people
have been assigned in the colonial imagination and in fact. On this issue, they constitute an ‘imagined
community’ (Mohanty, 1991, page 4, following Anderson, 1983) with a common context of struggle”
(Peters, 1998, p.665).
16
supportive space where Aboriginal people in the Downtown Eastside can reconnect with
traditional approaches to community and healing” (Aboriginal Front Door Society, 2010).
It provides community meetings, adult education, arts and crafts, drumming, healing
circles, and elder training and also functions as a culturally-relevant entry point towards
drug and alcohol treatment (Ibid).
The United Native Nations (UNN) is another Aboriginal organization which
extends beyond Vancouver. It represents approximately 90,000 Aboriginal people within
British Columbia, with membership open to anyone of Aboriginal ancestry. Its
decolonizing method, as explained on the website, is to qualify members,
solely on Aboriginal ancestry, not on the artificial definitions created by an
outdated Canadian Indian Act. The UNN currently has a membership base of
11,000+ people. Our major concern is to properly represent and protect the
interest of Aboriginal people who currently do not have a voice on government
decisions affecting their life and culture. The UNN supports on and off reserve,
status and non-status, Métis and Inuit people from all areas of BC. The UNN will
inform the federal and provincial governments on policy development in relation
to urban Aboriginal issues and generate funding opportunities for specific
initiatives to address socioeconomic issues in the areas of education, employment,
health and wellness, safety, housing and justice. The UNN membership is
organized into local chapters throughout BC. Each local is managed
independently of each other and other organizations. Provincial head office
provides support and guidance as requested. (United Native Nations: Working
together for our children, 2007)
In this manner, the United Native Nations provides an example of a successful
community organization working towards self-determination. It has alliances with the
Metro Vancouver Aboriginal Executive Council :“The Vancouver Urban Aboriginal
Voice” which includes the following organizations: the Circle of Eagles Lodge Society,
Kla-how-eya Aboriginal Centre, Federation of Aboriginal Foster Parents, Environmental
Aboriginal Guardianship through Law and Education, Lu’na Native Housing Society,
Aboriginal Community Careers Services Society, Vancouver Aboriginal Transformative
Justice Services, Urban Native Youth Association, Vancouver Aboriginal Child and
Family Services Society, Healing Our Spirit: BC Aboriginal HIV/ AIDS Society, Pacific
Association of First Nations Women, Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society,
Native Courtworker and Counselling Association of British Columbia, Knowledgeable
Aboriginal Youth Association, and the Aboriginal Mothers Centre Society (Ibid). Other
Aboriginal organizations within Vancouver include Aboriginal Youth Safe House, Native
Education Centre, Aboriginal Mother Care, and Native Health Centre (Aboriginal
Community Career Employment Services Society, 2008).
As is the case in other urban centres, the preceding examples of Aboriginal
organizations have formed in Vancouver because urban Aboriginal peoples are
committed to restructuring their lives (Silver, 2006).25 These community initiatives are
25
Not to be remiss, it should be noted that Aboriginal umbrella organizations such as the Congress of
Aboriginal Peoples (CAP), the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), and the Native Women’s Association of
Canada (NWAC) have also been very active in the context of urban Aboriginal peoples (Graham & Peters,
2002).
17
those in which people themselves identify the problems they want to solve and the ways
they want to solve them. This type of community development does not imply the
adoption of the attributes of the dominant culture (Silver, Hay, & Gorzen, 2006). Instead,
these emergent forms of urban Aboriginal community development are rooted in the
distinctive value of Aboriginal cultures in personal healing and community building and
are built around the traditional Aboriginal notions of sharing and community (Silver,
2006). They provide challenges to the neocolonial impositions of political space, provide
alternative urban political opportunities, and help to assert the self-determination of First
Nations urban peoples in Vancouver.
Conclusion
The Foucauldian conception which emphasizes that power relations are not topdown or hierarchical, but instead, multifaceted, proves useful in an analysis of
community organizations within the VDES. Power can exist in every relation and where
there is power, there is resistance in multiple forms and the potential for “reverse
discourses” (Foucault, 1990). The themes of resistance, survival, and possibility become
pivotal in a historical material analysis of the VDES. Beyond the obvious social
challenges, close examination reveals it as a community rich in activism with the
potential for transformational urban politics. A comprehensive examination of the VDES
requires, therefore, an assessment of the degree to which transgression of social
challenges can be empowering and can provide a blueprint for radical change which sows
the seeds of new spatial orderings (Cresswell, 1996).
While socially produced space in the VDES context is a clear reflection of
unequal neocolonial power relations and contestations, it can also be an important site of
Aboriginal resistance, revolution, and transformation. As Silver notes, the historical roots
of contemporary Aboriginal challenges are to be found in the process of colonization.
The solution, therefore, “is to decolonize ourselves- Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal
alike” (Silver, 2006, p.28). He writes,
Urban Aboriginal people face a vast array of problems, all of them, in one way or
another, a product of the experience of and the effects of colonization. In
response, urban Aboriginal people are engaged in a process of decolonization- of
struggling to remove themselves, as individuals and as communities, from the
adverse consequences of colonization, but doing so in their own ways. There is no
template for decolonization. The way forward is being discovered and developed
by urban Aboriginal people themselves. A part of this process, an important part,
is the particular form of Aboriginal community development being created by
urban Aboriginal people themselves as they struggle to forge a path to the future.
(Silver, 2006, p.13)
As I have attempted to demonstrate in this paper, while the VDES can be considered to
represent an extreme case of urban marginalization exacerbated through the forces of
contemporary neocolonialism, when examined through the lens of community resistance
and activism, it signals the potential for transformational urban Aboriginal politics. In so
doing, it provides a template for decolonization and a model for other urban Aboriginal
communities.
18
Works Cited
2010 Welcoming Committee. (2010). Retrieved February 17, 2010, from
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=101455116743
Aboriginal Community Career Employment Services Society (2008). Retrieved May 21,
2010, from http://www.accessfutures.com/
Aboriginal Front Door Society. (2010). Retrieved May 21, 2010, from
http://www2.vpl.vancouver.bc.ca/dbs/redbook/orgpgs/1/12099.html
Allford, J. (2008). Letters from Hastings and Main: Signs of hope in Vancouver’s
Downtown Eastside. Canada West Foundation. Retrieved April 17, 2010, from
http://www.cwf.ca/V2/cnt/publication_200802201707.php
Anderson, K. (1998). Sites of Difference: Beyond a cultural politics of race polarity.
In R. Fincher & J. M. Jacobs (Eds.), Cities of Difference (p.201-225).
New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Annis, R. (2010, February 16). Thousands protest opening of Vancouver Winter
Olympics. The Bullet: Socialist Project E-Bulletin, No. 313. Retrieved February
17, 2010 from http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/313.php#continue
Anthias, F., Yuval-Davis, N. & Cain, H. (1992). Racialized boundaries: Race, nation,
gender, colour and class and the anti-racist struggle. New York, NY: Routledge.
Assembly of First Nations/First Nations Information Governance Committee. (2007).
First Nations regional longitudinal health survey (RHS) 2002/03: Results for
adults, youth and children living in First Nations communities. Ottawa, ON:
Assembly of First Nations/First Nations Information Governance Committee.
Baxter, S. (1997). Still raising hell: Poverty, activism and other true stories. Vancouver,
BC: Press Gang Publishers.
BC Treaty Commission. (2009). Our sacred strength- Talking circles among Aboriginal
women. Vancouver, BC: BC Treaty Commission. Retrieved May 21, 2010, from
http://www.bctreaty.net/files/pdf_documents/BCTCTalkingCircles.pdf
Benoit, C., Carroll, D., & Chaudhry, M. (2003). In search of a healing place: Aboriginal
women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Social Science and Medicine, 56(6),
821–33.
Blomley, N. (1998). Landscapes of property. Law & Society Review, 32(3), 567-612.
19
---. (2004). Unsettling the city: Urban land and the politics of property. New York, NY:
Routledge.
Bowen and Shannon Frontline Consulting. (2009). Human trafficking, sex work safety,
and the 2010 Games: Assessments and recommendations. Vancouver, BC: Sex
Industry Worker Safety Action Group. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/oculyork/docDetail.action?docID=10309579
Brealey, K. (1995). Mapping them ‘out’: Euro-Canadian cartography and the
appropriation of the Nuxalk and Ts’ilhqot’ in First Nations’ territories, 17931916. Canadian Geographer, 39(2), 140-156.
Brenner, N. & Theodore, N. (2002). Cities and geographies of “Actually existing
neoliberalism.” Antipode, 34(3), 349-379.
Canada, Human Resources and Social Development Canada. (2006). Advancing the
inclusion of people with disabilities. Ottawa, ON: Government of Canada.
Retrieved September 24, 2008, from
http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/disability_issues/reports/fdr/2006/page05.shtml#_Toc1
50915449
---. (2002).On Hastings Street: 30 Years of retail history in Vancouver’s Downtown
Eastside 1970-2000. Retrieved April 6, 2010, from
http://vancouverneon.com/pdf/hastingsretail.pdf
Cardinal, N. (2006). The exclusive city: Identifying, measuring, and drawing attention to
Aboriginal and Indigenous experiences in an urban context. Cities, 23(3), 217228.
Cardinal, N. & Adin, E. (2005). An urban Aboriginal life: The 2005 indicators report on
the quality of life of Aboriginal people in the Greater Vancouver Region.
Vancouver, BC: Centre for Native Policy and Research.
CBC News. (2008, February 26). No purpose in 2nd Pickton trial: B.C. attorney general.
Retrieved November 2, 2008, from
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/02/26/bcpicktonoppal.html
---. (2007a, December 12). Pickton gets maximum sentence for murders.
Retrieved November 2, 2008, from http://www.cbc.ca/canada/britishcolumbia/story/2007/12/11/bc-picktonsentencing.html
---. (2007b, December 9). Women still missing from Vancouver amid Pickton
convictions. CBC News. Retrieved November 2, 2008, from
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/12/09/bc-pickton2.html
20
Chee Mamuk Aboriginal Program, First Nations Inuit Health, BC Centre for Disease
Control, & Provincial Health Services Authority. (2010). Reclaiming Tradition:
Around the kitchen table: A model for HIV, hepatitis and sexual health education.
Retrieved May 22, 2010, from http://www.bccdc.ca/NR/rdonlyres/8DD902AB38CB-42C0-A025-54B0CCC0553C/0/STI_Chee_Mamuk_ATKTguide
City of Vancouver. (2007). The Carnegie Centre: The Downtown Eastside’s livingroom.
Retrieved April 6, 2010, from
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/carnegiecentre/
---. (2005/06). Downtown Eastside community monitoring report. Retrieved April 17,
2010, from http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/dtes/pdf/2006MR.pdf
---. (2008). Downtown Eastside revitalization. Retrieved November 2,
2008, from http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/dtes/index.htm
---. (2005). Housing plan for the Downtown Eastside. Retrieved, April 11, 2010, from
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/housing/pdf/dteshousingplan.pdf
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics,
and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43 (6), 1241-1299.
Cresswell, T. (1996). In place/ Out of place: Geography, ideology, and transgression.
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Cruikshank, B. (1999). The will to empower: Democratic citizens and other subjects.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Culhane, D. (2003). Their spirits live within us: Aboriginal women in downtown Eastside
Vancouver emerging into visibility. American Indian Quarterly, 27(3&4),
593- 606.
Das Gupta, T. (1995). Families of native peoples, immigrants, and people of colour.
In N. Mandell & A. Duffy (Eds.), Canadian families: Diversity, conflict and
change (p.141-174). Toronto, ON: Harcourt Brace.
Day, R. (2000). Multiculturalism and the history of Canadian diversity. Toronto, ON:
University of Toronto Press.
Downtown Eastside Residents Association. (2008). Retrieved November 2, 2008, from
http://www.dera.bc.ca/
21
Emberley, J. (2001). The bourgeois family, Aboriginal women, and colonial governance
in Canada: A study in feminist historical and cultural materialism. Signs, 27(1),
59-85.
Fanon, F. (2004). The wretched of the earth. New York, NY: Grove Press.
Foucault, M. (1990). The history of sexuality volume I: An introduction (Robert Hurley,
Trans.). New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Four Host First Nations. (2009). 2010 Aboriginal pavilion. Retrieved February 25, 2010,
from http://www.fourhostfirstnations.com/about-us/
Fudge, J. & Vosko, L. F. (2003). Gender paradoxes and the rise of contingent work:
Towards a transformative political economy of the labour market. In W. Clement
& L. Vosko (Eds.), Changing Canada: Political economy as transformation
(pp.183-209). Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Gerecke, K. (1991). Success in revitalizing the inner city: The story of DERA. City
Magazine, 12(4), 11-19.
Government of Canada. (2009). The four host First Nations. Retrieved February 25,
2010,
from http://canada2010.gc.ca/invsts/hnationsh/030401-eng.cfm
Government of Canada. (2010). Women- British Columbia. Retrieved May 21, 2010,
from http://www.aboriginalcanada.gc.ca/acp/site.nsf/eng/ao26601.html
Graham, K. & Peters, E. (2002). Aboriginal communities and urban sustainability.
Ottawa, ON: Canadian Policy Research Networks Inc.
Greater Vancouver Regional District. (2003). A profile of Aboriginal people, First
Nations and Indian reserves in Greater Vancouver. Burnaby, BC: Greater
Vancouver Regional District Policy & Planning Department. Retrieved March 24,
2010, from http://www.metrovancouver.org/region/aboriginal/Aboriginal
%20Affairs%20documents/aboriginal-profile.pdf
Guerrero, M.A. (1997). Civil rights versus sovereignty: Native American women in life
and land struggles. In J. Alexander & C. Mohanty (Eds.), Feminist genealogies,
colonial legacies, democratic futures (pp. 101-121). New York, NY: Routledge.
Haniff-Cleofas, R. & Khedr, R. (2005). Women with disabilities in the urban
environment. Toronto, ON: National Network for Environments and Women’s
Health.
Hanselmann, C. (2001). Urban Aboriginal people in Western Canada: Realities and
policies. Calgary, AB: Canada West Foundation.
22
Hou, F. & Bourne, L.S. (2004). Population movement into and out of Canada’s
immigrant gateway cities: A comparative study of Toronto, Montreal, and
Vancouver. Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada.
Huey, L. & Berndt, E. (2008). ‘You’ve gotta learn how to play the game’: Homeless
women’s use of gender performance as a tool for preventing victimization. The
Sociological Review, 56(2), 178-194.
Hunter, J. (2000, July 17). On the mean streets. Maclean’s, 113(29), 40-41.
Jackson, S. & Scott, S. (2002). Introduction: The gendering of Sociology.
In S. Jackson & S. Scott (Eds.), Gender: A sociological reader (pp.1-26). New
York, NY: Routledge.
Jiwani, Y. & Young, M.L. (2006). Missing and murdered women: Reproducing
marginality in news discourse. Canadian Journal of Communication, 31 (4), 895917.
Loomba, A. (2005). Colonialism/ Postcolonialism (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Macdonald, B. (1992). Vancouver: A visual history. Vancouver, BC: Talon Books.
MapArt Publishing. (2009). Vancouver. Oshawa, ON: Peter Heiler Ltd.
Marcuse, P. (1993). What’s so new about divided cities? International Journal of Urban
and Regional Research, 17(3), 355-365.
Mason, M. (2007). Collaborative partnerships for urban development: A study of the
Vancouver Agreement. Environment and Planning A., 39, 2366-2382.
McDonald, R.A.J. (1996). Making Vancouver: Class, status and social boundaries,
18631913. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
Mies, M. (1998). Patriarchy and accumulation on a world scale: Women in the
international division of labour (2nd ed.). London, UK: Zed Books.
Mohanty, C. & Alexander, M.J. (Eds.) (1991). Feminist genealogies, colonial legacies,
democratic futures. New York, NY: Routledge.
Mohanty, C. (2003). Feminism without borders: Decolonizing theory, practicing
solidarity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Mohanty, C., Russo, A., & Torres, L. (Eds.) (1991). Third World women and the politics
of feminism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
23
Native Women’s Association of Canada. (2008). Report by the Native Women’s
Association of Canada on the occasion of the review of the sixth and seventh
reports of Canada on its compliance with the convention on the elimination of all
forms of discrimination against women. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/21135590/Report-by-the-Native-WomensAssociation-of-Canada-on-the-occasion
Newhouse, D. & Peters, E. (Eds.). (2003). Not strangers in these parts: Urban
Aboriginal
peoples. Ottawa, ON: Government of Canada Policy Research Initiative.
No 2010 Olympics on Stolen Native Land: Resist the 2010 Corporate Circus. (2010).
Retrieved February 13, 2010, from http://www.no2010.com/node/19
Oeullette, G. (2002). The fourth world: An Indigenous perspective on feminism and
Aboriginal women’s activism. Halifax, NS: Fernwood.
Peters, E. J. (Ed.) (1998). Subversive spaces: First Nations women and the city.
Environment and planning D: Society and space, 16, 665-685.
Pitman, B. (2002). Re-mediating the spaces of reality television: America’s Most Wanted
and the case of Vancouver’s missing women. Environment and Planning A, 34,
167-184.
Pivot Legal Society. (2006). Cracks in the foundation: Solving the housing crisis in
Canada’s poorest neighbourhood. Vancouver, BC: Pivot Legal Society.
Pratt, G. (2005). Abandoned women and spaces of the exception. Antipode, 37(5), 10521078.
Pullen, M. & Matthews, S. (2006). Creating art and social change in Vancouver’s
Downtown Eastside. Women & Environments International Magazine, 72/73
(Fall 2006), 81-83.
Razack, S. (2002). Gendered racial violence and specialized justice: The murder of
Pamela George. In S. Razack (Ed.), Race, space, and the law: Unmapping a
white settler society (pp.121-156). Toronto, ON: Between the Lines.
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP). (1996). Report of the royal
commission on Aboriginal peoples. Ottawa, ON: Canada Communication Group.
Retrieved September 24, 2008, from
24
http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sgmm_e.html
Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Sandoval, C. (2000). Methodology of the oppressed. Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press.
Schmidt, C. (Producer; Director) & Morin, C. (Editor). (2007). Five ring circus: The
untold story of the 2010 games. [Videorecording]. Vancouver, BC: Ragtime
Productions in association with Pumpkinhead Productions.
Shakespeare, T. (2006). The social model of disability. In L. Davis (Ed.), The disability
studies reader (2nd ed., pp.197-204). New York, NY: Routledge.
Shaw, C. (2010). The five ring Olympic circus: The big lie, elite opportunities, and lost
opportunities. Retrieved February 13, 2010, from
http://2010watch.com/articles/2008/march.html
Shier, R. (2002). Introduction. In R. Shier (Ed.), Stan Douglas: Every building on 100
West Hastings (pp.10-17). Vancouver, BC: Contemporary Art Gallery.
Siggner, A. & Costa, R. (2005). Aboriginal conditions in census metropolitan areas,
1981-2001. Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada. Retrieved May 21, 2010, from
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-613-m/89-613-m2005008-eng.pdf
Silver, J. (2006). Building a path to a better future: Urban Aboriginal People. In J. Silver,
J. Hay, D. Klyne, P. Ghorayshi, P. Gorzen, C. Keeper, M. MacKenzie, and F.
Simard (Eds.). In their own voices: Building urban Aboriginal communities
(pp.11-39). Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing.
Silver, J., Hay, J., & Gorzen, P. (2006). In but not of: Aboriginal people in an inner-city
neighbourhood. In J. Silver, J. Hay, D. Klyne, P. Ghorayshi, P. Gorzen, C.
Keeper, M. MacKenzie, and F. Simard (Eds.). In their own voices: Building
urban Aboriginal communities (pp.40-69). Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing.
Smith, A. (2005). Conquest: Sexual violence and American Indian genocide. Cambridge,
MA: South End Press.
Smith, L. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples.
New York, NY: Zed Books.
Smith, N. & Derksen, J. (2002). The worst block in Vancouver. In R. Shier (Ed.),
Stan Douglas: Every building on 100 West Hastings (pp.62-92).Vancouver, BC:
Contemporary Art Gallery.
Sommers, J. (2001). The place of the poor: Poverty, space and the politics of
25
representation in downtown Vancouver, 1950-1997 (Doctoral dissertation, Simon
Fraser University, 2001). Dissertation Abstracts International, A (62/09), 3145.
Sommers, J. & Blomley, N. (2002). The worst block in Vancouver. In R. Shier (Ed.),
Every building on 100 West Hastings (pp.18-58). Vancouver, BC: Contemporary
Art Gallery/ Arsenal Pulp Press.
Statistics Canada. (2006). Aboriginal identity: Area of residence. Ottawa, ON: Statistics
Canada. Retrieved March 22, 2010, from
http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/tbt/Rp-eng.cfm?
LANG=E&APATH=3&DETAIL=0&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=0&GC=0&GID=6
14135&GK=0&GRP=1&PID=89121&PRID=0&PTYPE=88971,97154&S=0&S
HOWALL=0&SUB=0&Temporal=2006&THEME=73&VID=0&VNAMEE=&V
NAMEF=
---. (2006a). Census tract profile for 0057.01 (CT), Vancouver (CMA) and
British Columbia. Retrieved March 29, 2009, from
http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/prof/92-597/P3.cfm?
CTuid=9330057.01&Lang=E
---. (2006b). Census tract profile for 0057.02 (CT), Vancouver (CMA) and
British Columbia. Retrieved March 29, 2009, from
http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/prof/92-597/P3.cfm?
CTuid=9330057.02&Lang=E
---. (2006c). Census tract profile for 0058.00 (CT), Vancouver (CMA) and
British Columbia. Retrieved March 29, 2009, from
http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/prof/92-597/P3.cfm?
CTuid=9330058.00&Lang=E
---. (2006d). Census tract profile for 0059.06 (CT), Vancouver (CMA) and
British Columbia. Retrieved March 29, 2009, from
http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/prof/92-597/P3.cfm?
CTuid=9330059.06&Lang=E
Statistics Canada. (2009). Population by Aboriginal group, by census metropolitan area
(Census 2006). Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada. Retrieved May 21, 2010, from
http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/DEMO64A-eng.htm
Thompson, R. (2005). Highway to healing drives Native women. Herizons, 18(3), 8-8.
United Native Nations: Working together for our children. (2007). Retrieved May 21,
2010. from http://www.unns.bc.ca/who.htm
United Way of Greater Toronto and the Canadian Council on Social Development.
(2004). Poverty by postal code. Retrieved November 2, 2008, from
26
http://www.uwgt.org/whoWeHelp/reports/povertyByPostalCode.php
Wacquant, L. (2008). Urban outcasts: A comparative sociology of advanced marginality.
Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.